


it's not fair (i found love)

by keouil



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Kannabi Bridge Mission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27193084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keouil/pseuds/keouil
Summary: because rin wasn’t so much the catalyst for his undoing, but the reason for his being entirely.
Relationships: Nohara Rin/Uchiha Obito
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	it's not fair (i found love)

**Author's Note:**

> heavily inspired by [this](https://youtu.be/NxwJ1q7cIck).

obito meets rin on the day of his parents funeral.

he was too young to remember the nameless faces or the practiced condolences, especially with a clan as diplomatic as his. so it came as no surprise when the only tangible memory he really had of that unfateful day belonged to a chance encounter with one of the only civilians present in the wake.

 _daughter of the florist_ , his grandmother tells him when he asks who the only people who didn’t have a red fan on their backs were and what they were doing in his house. granny also told him this same girl was the one who insisted on an extra white lily for the mother, because she died too young and they had to honour that youth somehow. 

as he was passed from one elder to another, he sees the civilian girl rummaging about in the back of their house, arms always full with something and busy as a bee.

not once did they interact during the whole recession. uchiha were impossibly strict about everything, but non-clan fraternizing even more so. and because obito was an uchiha before he was a grieving son, he complies.

the florist’s daughter was clearly not as bounded by clan politics or passive-aggressive transgressions, as she had freely interacted with anyone she came in contact with. happily, even. either offering the single lady who lived across from them a beverage or helping the old couple who sold dumplings out the door or even just sitting with the clan matriarch in silence as she processed, florist junior did it with all the patience in the world.

after everyone else has gone home and all that was left in the suddenly too empty house was his grandmother, him, and the help – when rin bows her head and gives him a kind smile, obito is speechless.

because her expression then wasn’t like fugaku-san with his barely repressed disappointment or any other relative that was forced by hand to offer their indoctrinated grievance. when rin smiled at obito, as in really smiled like she couldn’t possibly understand what he was going through but cared enough to help him through it somehow, he knows she means it.

maybe it was that moment, that naked compassion this civilian demonstrated for a complete stranger, that sealed his fate.

* * *

obito sees rin again on his first day of school.

there she sat, brown hair with browner eyes, two rows before him in the small classroom. he noticed she still had the same kind of brightness she always seemed to carry effortlessly, it didn’t matter if it was in a funeral house or a bustling homeroom. she was talking animatedly with the person next to her, kurenai something, but his eyes were on her the entire time.

she grew taller since, though not enough for him to suddenly be pulling out height exercises at least. there was a certain glow that played all across her features as she spoke, illuminating and entrapping her very essence with every word she said or every movement she made. she was so easy to watch, something about the unguarded way she carried herself but with every bit of certainty made her all the more intriguing. 

obito was a happy person in general, but that was through effort. 

because if he spent too long remembering all the reasons why he shouldn’t be _(dead parents, weak grandmother, incompetent skills)_ then he might start believing it too. but even when all the world has beaten him down, his spirit to live is something they have to tear out of his dead body.

only rin didn’t seem to be the same. 

she seemed to be happy because she simply _was_ – is that even possible? had she somehow been spared by the cruelty of the world and was the one in a million rarity? it couldn’t be. no one was that lucky. obito knew he had it hard, but he also knew some people had it harder.

either she was a cosmic being that governed her own fate or she scored enough karmic points out of being a genuinely, truly good person that she escaped the world’s claws altogether – and obito thinks, when he sees her giving her extra #2 pencils or walking the elderly or volunteering at the clinic, it could only be the latter.

* * *

obito speaks to rin when he is crying alone on the footsteps.

or, actually, it was the other way around.

rin was the one who spoke first, offering her purple handkerchief along with concerned eyes and a hesitant _are you okay?_

was he? let’s see: failed his basic kata forms, is the laughing stock of the entire first-grade class, accidentally spilled the special lunch baa-san made for him as encouragement, couldn’t go home just yet because he was so ashamed, and now the love of his life was watching him flailing about trying to cover his whimpers and snots using her lavender-scented handkerchief. 

obito was not at all okay, but she couldn’t know that.

he manages a weak thumbs up and an even more embarrassing sputtering of _i-i-i’m okay_ before his words give out entirely and he starts hiccuping bad, on top of the weeping and the snot and the humiliation. still he was stubborn and forces syllables to work together while smiling through his slobbering mess, _j-ju-(hiccup)just ha-d-d a (whimper) l-o-ong d-day_.

it’s obvious she doesn’t believe him, because who the hell who would? obito sees her furrowing her brows and seems to be contemplating something for a moment as she looked down at him. then she sets her things down and sits next to him on the stairs.

by this time obito is nearly hyperventilating, too many things are happening all at once and multi-tasking was another thing he was obviously no good at. he tries hard to reel in his tears and wails and embarrassment to the best of his abilities. their dreaded first encounter was _not_ going to be remembered like this.

he faintly hears her call his name. for a brief second the wires in his brain have stopped functioning altogether, because _she_ called _his_ name, that meant she _knew_ him. it takes all of him not to lose everything right on that spot, mortified but grounded at giving her yet another unflattering first impression.

 _you’re obito, right?_ she tries again, this time kinder; or maybe she always said it that way? he really can’t focus on anything else past the floral smell that wafted off her clothes every time she moved from her spot merely an inch from him. their legs almost touched. obito wanted the ground to swallow him whole.

as if she could tell he was having a hard time making sense of everything, she takes autonomy of the conversation and begins talking about the absolute random things. how kurenai had a crush on the hokage’s son in the other class. how her father was very proud of her for wanting to make something out of her life. how she thought kakashi looked cute with his green scarf. how she remembered an uchiha she met who wasn’t good with words either and—

_what?_

she looks at him then. the next words she says are ones he will always remember: _i’m always watching, you know._

* * *

when obito says goodbye to rin, he never gets to finish.

but when she is holding his hand so tight, as if the only thing grounding him back down to this crumbling earth his body is struggling to depart from is this single physical connection, he thinks maybe he doesn’t have to. 

by the sheer force of will, rin could do anything she wanted. 

he’s seen firsthand how she was able to bring people on the brink of death up and kicking the very next day, how minato-sensei could be the most chakra-deprived they’ve seen him but with just her special tea he is suddenly revitalized, how her fragile hands are capable of bringing so much life – he’s seen it all. not once did she waver.

but the hand holding his right now is shaking.

so maybe he has seen it all at that point and this is the one thing he gets to see first. he abandons the last thread of hope he was clinging to and instead tries to recall her on the day he first saw her, heart on her sleeve and roaring compassion, willing himself to be just as selfless; 

and tells her to let go.

* * *

when obito arrives a second too late and sees her body go limp, he is livid.

nothing else mattered then. not the fact he made it out after months of dancing with his ever-fleeting insanity in that lonely cave, not his new-found strength that supplied him with the power to annihilate an entire troop, not the premise of unlocking the sharingan and everything it entailed for him.

all that mattered now was the girl with brown hair and browner eyes has faded into all that is grey – light off, glow absent, warmth gone cold.

rin had that special ability to somehow be in the presence of so much darkness, yet never once let it control her. not when she had patients die on her, she rode out the grief with their families. not when she saw kakashi slice a man’s throat just in front of her, she sat with him until the tremors in his hand stopped. and most certainly not when he was on the brink of losing his very life, yet still she held him and refused to cry until the very end.

she was strong like that. he wasn’t. 

* * *

if obito lost her in this world, he was going to make another one.


End file.
